7 Things That Locke Perfectly Defined In The Second Treatise, Translated Into Real English

John Locke's Second Treatise discusses some important ideas. Here they are, expressed in the original olde seventeenth century Engllishh and a calm, cool, collected, freshly modern take.

The Natural State of Man:

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"The State of perfect Freedom to order their Actions and dispose of their Possessions." (269)

= You can do whatever you want.

The Law of Nature:

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"No one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions.

[But,] everyone has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its Violation." (271)

= We all have inalienable rights but if someone breaks the law, we're all obligated to knock that fool back into place.

The State of Nature:

"Men living together according to reason, without a common Superior on Earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature." (280)

= No government. Reason rules.

The State of War:

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"Force, or a declared design of force upon the Person of the other, where there is no common superior on Earth to appeal to for relief." (280)

= Fighting without supervision.

Individual Property:

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"When did they begin to be his? Labour put a distinction between them and common; and so they became his private right." (288)

= Earth's resources + hard work = yours

The Dominance of Nature:

"God and his Reason commanded him to subdue the Earth. He that in Obedience to this Command of God subdued, tilled, and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that was his Property, which another had no Title to, nor could without injury take from him." (291)

= So God made a Farmer.

Money:

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"Some lasting thing that Men might keep without spoiling; and that by with mutual consent Men would take in exchange for the truly useful but perishable Supports of Life." (300)

= $$$$$